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T O P I C R E V I E W

Robert Pearlman

Russia's president Vladimir Putin spoke with the cosmonauts and astronauts aboard the International Space Station on Friday (April 12), congratulating them on Space Exploration Day and announcing a new pledge to deep space exploration, including the country's first manned spaceflight from its own soil in 2018.

"We are lagging behind the world in some areas," Putin said on a tour of the future launch site in eastern Siberia near the border with China. "We've developed a noticeable gap from the leading space powers in the technologies of so-called deep space exploration."

Russia wants the Vostochny Cosmodrome, where it hopes to exploit a new generation of rockets carrying heavier payloads, to rival its current launch site in Kazakhstan, the lease of which has been in contention since the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union.

"It's clear that in the 21st century Russia must preserve its status as a leading space power," he said, estimating the size of the space-launch market will grow to be worth $1.5 trillion by 2030 from $300 billion-$400 billion today.

Also announced Friday were plans to launch cosmonauts to the Moon and Mars by 2030 and the development of a crewed spacecraft and heavy-lift launch vehicle.

SkyMan1958

That is excellent news. I just hope Putin follows through with his plan.

For what its worth, assuming the US spends $17 billion a year on NASA (which is ~ 5% less than it is currently spending), not including fiscal year 2013 (since I'm not sure about Russia's fiscal year), then the US would spend $119 billion on NASA during the same timeframe, e.g. through the end of 2020.

Clearly at 2020 (or hopefully before then) both the US and Russia will have to decide what to do with the ISS.